Yet Another Why I’m Choosing to Do NaNoWriMo This Year Post

NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month and many writers take the challenge to write a 50k words in the 30 days of November. As the end of October approaches, I’m sure plenty of bloggers will be putting up their “NaNoWriMo posts.” But before you fall to the ground screaming “Not ANOTHER post about NaNoWriMo”, read the reasons I’m choosing to participate this year:

This may have been intended to be sarcasm, but it's one of the reasons I decided to participate.

I’ve never participated before and I’ll try almost anything once. (Mayonnaise is one of the many, many exceptions to this statement.)

I think that it may impossible to work in nearly 2k words a day into my schedule for the month of November . . . and I try to do at least one impossible thing a day. This will take care of my ridiculousness for a whole entire month.

I don’t write enough fiction, even though I want to.

I like to write the word “NaNoWriMo.” Still working on pronouncing it, though.

I have a story I’ve been trying to beat into a novel for over a year now. And by “trying” I mean saying “Man, I need to get working on that novel. Oh look, the Real Housewives of New Jersey is on. Break time!”

I don’t expect to get a book out of it. I expect to get a decent chunk done of a super rough draft of a book. Which I may or may not burn afterwards. But it’s not the product that’s valuable. It’s the process. I think we all spend a lot of time focusing on results instead of actions. By the end of this, I will have worked on a personal writing project for 30 consecutive days instead of pushing it aside for reality TV and Xbox. I call that a start.

Are any of you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? And what are your reasons for doing or not doing it?

I don’t know if I can physically unplug the TV. I have a serious addiction to it and since I recently gave up Sour Patch Kids (3 weeks and still counting) it might be too ambitious. But, I will let my DVR do its job and only watch TV during allotted times.

I did NanoWrimo in 2008. Wow. What a feeling. I did all 50K and even got a t-shirt! I wear that sucker ALL the time Still!

The beautiful thing about doing is is knowing that you can. It's SUCH a huge endeavor. Throwing out words, never erasing in order to reach your goal. It's raw writing in its purest form. I really think every writer should atleast try it.

I have no novel waiting in the wings, but I admire those that do. This sounds like a great excuse to go for it. Good for you! (It's going to get silly if I keep saying that but it seems to fit this situation, too…)